Darren’s a fantastic player isn’t he? I think that you know again there’s a number of players that we are looking at. What is fantastic for our football club is to be linked with the kind of players that we are being linked with.

Marouane is obviously a fantastic player. I think things haven’t worked out maybe as well as they could have done in the latter part of his Arsenal career so that’s one we are keeping an eye on along with a number of others.

Should the Eagles pull off the double striker swoop then, along with the signing of £4.5m wildcard Dwight Gayle from Peterborough, the evergreen Kevin Phillips and last season’s top scorer Glenn Murray (currently injured), the South Londoners could have enough firepower to give them a realistic chance of staying in the top flight next season.

Crystal Palace will be desperate to avoid the drop this season, being the only club in Premier League history to have been promoted four times only to yo-yo back to the Championship in the following seasons.